Junius still hadn't joined the chase, sticking to the middle of the arena, doing his drills to keep warm. He kept one eye on the proceedings, of course, as a seasoned fighter should.

Once Quintus tossed his net prematurely, Junius brought his two rudii to bear. The aggression of his movement brought a collective gasp out of the audience... Yet Junius stayed put. Not wrong by any means, but the disappointed glances swiveled away from him.

I chuckled, for only fools would dismiss Junius like that in favor of Laurentius. The arena crowd isn't the smartest beast out there, so I forgave them their fascination with my shield-wall. He was championing Fidelium's hopes after all, despite being a barbarian himself. Because that was what it meant, to be a gladiator. You fought for yourself and for glory, and let the crowd fly whatever colors they wanted.

With the weight of collective pride riding on his shoulders, just duped, Laurentius executed a turn so lumbering, I cringed. The audience cheered him anyway, for the beer was always cheap and plentiful at the Colosseum.

Once Laurentius finally had a straight shot at Victor, his legs pumped with superhuman effort. He was doing the impossible, gaining on the jester, despite his properly laced, heavy breast-plate. Laurentius and I cried out in one voice, when he closed in on Victor.

His was a yelp of triumph.

Mine was a scream of frustration. I taught Laurentius better than that! Then I swallowed my scream, because Victor seemed to have made his first mistake in this match.

Caught between the advancing human anvil and Junius' whirling rudii at his back, Victor didn't throw himself into a sidelong roll as I would have done. He charged head-long at Laurentius. With grace I hadn't previously seen in any man of his height and stature, Victor's speed went from standing to blur in mere two strides.

I sucked on my teeth. "What are you doing?"

The third stride closed the distance between the two tall men. If Victor was hoping Laurentius, armed, armored, and enraged would chicken out of the head-on clash—

Of course, he didn't!

They didn't crush into one another either, because Victor vaulted over Laurentius, using the shield-wall's huge shoulder as a pivot. Victor's legs whipped through the air, making a semicircle. He landed a few yards behind his foe with a tiger's lightness.

Laurentius should have snuck a hit at Victor while he was showing off. Any hit: glancing, grazing, a blessed scratch... whatever! And he didn't. He was too busy losing his balance and trying to see what in Mithras' name was happening, where Victor had disappeared. The cheek plates of his helmet kept Victor just outside his field of vision. He swiveled his head, looking completely lost, then belly flopped onto the sand. Curses poured out of his mouth together with foaming saliva, but the screaming in the stands overpowered them completely.

Victor didn't check for what either Laurentius, or Junius, or Didius were doing. He moved on... Quintus!

Or, more precisely, on Quintus' net, which still lay abandoned on the sand. Victor's speed versus his size was a sight to behold. Quintus must have been impressed by it too, because he squealed in disbelief, then took off, racing Victor to the net full-tilt. His wiry body was built for sprinting, but Victor had a head start.

Mithra's balls on a spit! If Quintus ran like that before, he could have struck while Victor was playing with Laurentius! With his obvious jealousy, how did he not bruise our rookie and his giant ego?

Alas, Quintus woke up to the missed possibilities too late. His mouth twisted like he was going to cry. Momentarily, my irritation melted with a pang of guilt. If this wasn't a mock fight, he would have paid for tears in his throat and for that stumble. He was too young for the arena of blood! I shouldn't have—

Or maybe I did the right thing, because Quintus poured every ounce of his energy into catching Victor. They reached their target simultaneously. Now, if Quintus remembered the difference in size and used it to his advantage as I would have done back in my day...

Each gladiator grabbed the corner of the net closest to him, and Victor yanked his side with all his might.

Quintus didn't use that momentum against Victor, the fool. Instead, he pulled too, staggered and held on for dear life. His lips were one tight line, teeth squeezed together. I shut my eyes for a blink in frustration. There is no worse fool than a youth full of piss and bluster!

Victor could have destroyed the kid, but he merely threw all the free bulk of the net over Quintus. The ropes streaked through the air, thumped into the teetering boy, and toppled him to the ground.

"Caught one!" Victor shouted. "The smallest shrimp!"

Quintus rolled under Victor's feet, hoping to trip him. This kind of tenacity that restored my faith in Quintus. And if he was superb, he would swallow a hard lesson together with sand and humiliation.

Didius looked like he would finally throw his net, but Laurentius was back on his feet and coming in hot. So Didius rolled his eyes, checked his throw and shuffled around for a position from where he had a clean shot at Victor, without snagging Laurentius.

Victor weaseled between these two foes, scooped the sand, straightened—

I winced as his expert toss spoiled Didius' aim. My hands came up on their own to clap to Victor, basically against my will. I would have done the same as Victor, blinded Didius, because Laurentius was already seeing red with rage, and sand to the face would have been an overkill.

"Tat," I whispered, "tat! Laurentius, fall back! Duck!"

The audience was screaming their own advice, most of it stupid, like the fans always do.

"Mithras' bull!" I groaned when Laurentius neither ducked, nor fell back. He kept coming, so his feet caught in Didius' net. The big guy was so blessedly strong, he dragged it a few steps behind him, before crushing into.... Didius.

I massaged my skull, grabbing my hair. Three men down, and Victor was still standing! By the triumphant glance he threw at me, he was also unscathed.

The clapping in the arena reached a deafening pitch. The crowd no longer cared who was supposed to be brave Fidelis legionnaires and who was the filthy, naked barbarian. They simply egged on the cool guy who made two buffoons collide and take each-other out. My buffoons! It was a slim consolation that the cool guy was also mine.

And yet, I couldn't blame the arena-goers for changing their sympathies. I would have shouted myself hoarse too, cheering for Victor if someone had landed at least one measly hit on him. Losing the bet on top of this ah... performance? Mithras' bull...

I gripped the stone of the railing. If I could jump the barrier that separated me from the arena, I would have. I could have fixed things. Barring that... "Junius," I shouted, "Junius!"

The vein throbbed in my temple. I grew so hot, Messalina Augusta's gaze felt like a cold dagger impaled between my shoulder-blades. Not that she'd ever hesitated to hurt me to my face, even when she was just a slip of a girl, at her father's estate...

With my blood boiling from the fight, I straightened from the railing to stare down the Empress across the arena. Or I imagined I did, because I couldn't really tell if she caught my eviscerating glance.

I only knew that she would be smiling right now. I could picture that foxy, satisfied smile of hers, because she had smiled like that at me before. At this arena, from Claudius Caesar's side. And before that, what seemed like ages ago, she smiled at me. I had never seen her smile like that at anyone else. She saved all these little smirks just for me. They were haughty, as if she watched me always, recording even the smallest mistakes I had made and judging it. From that first time when she came to see me at her father's estate, brazenly, to tell me I was a fool, it was always the same smile on her lips. I hated it all the more, because it spoiled the green warmth of her eyes.

While I locked my gaze with the first matron of the Fidus Empire, Victor retreated toward the Imperial box, and so came into my view. Messalina Augusta would have to wait. I had to work.

I scanned the arena to see Junius finally leave his dominating position in the middle. He ventured forth with such purpose that the arena quieted.

"Junius! Get him!"

He might have even heard me, though he didn't acknowledge it. He carried his two rudii with the same readiness as when he drilled with them. In my imagination, they transformed into deadly blades. I felt the vibrations of the crowd behind me, then it went even quieter as they held their breath. I think I wasn't the only one who imagined sharp steel in Junius' hands, rather the sticks. This man could take Victor down. Finally, the revanche for Fidelis they craved!

"Oh! This must be Claudius Caesar!" Victor hollered, pointing at Junius.

I exhaled in relief—if he'd just said Caesar, he'd be walking out of the arena in chains for this joke. The Fidus Empire had only one Emperor.

"His sight strikes fear in the barbarian hearts!" After saying this, Victor clutched his chest, bowed to the Empress—the move as savvy as the sidestepping the trap with using the title—and... toppled over. He convulsed in the sand for a good measure to show how the fear had killed him.

Fear, not Junius. Junius, my best, hadn't so much as taken a swing at Victor. Realizing that, he spat. My fingers ground the brick they were gripping to powder.

Victor lay still.

Someone behind me yelled, "Coward!" and whistled. Another man echoed the jibe, but their yelps died down before merging into one scolding voice, because Messalina Augusta rose from her seat.

Strip off all the Imperial gold and jewels, and Messalina Augusta would have still commanded the attention of the crowd. The members of her clan just did. Her breed was the blood of the Lost Earth so perfectly preserved, so pure, that it was almost unnatural. They had golden hair with various amounts of red tinting it. And eyes as green as the emeralds. Four generations removed from the powerful sun of our ancestral homeland, Messalina Augusta and her kin still passed on their perfectly bronzed skin. They were true Fidelis, and as beautiful as humans from Earth could get.

"Ave Fidelium!" Messalina Augusta shouted.

The crowd amplified her call a thousand-fold. So loudly they cheered, that they barely heard their Empress add a late, quiet, "Victory to Claudius Caesar!"

Once the roaring dropped off, she twisted a ring off her finger. Every eye in the packed stadium tracked her motion, however small it was. It felt like the whole Empire watched as she lifted the shiny circle overhead. "Viva Fidelis!"

The responding "Viva!" shook the stone and sky.

She tossed the golden ring to Junius, who caught it with a bow.

Victor climbed to his feet. Laurentius, Didius and Quintus also got up. He didn't bow the second time, I noticed, but strolled toward the exit with a grin so huge, I barely recognized his face. Who was this man and what did he do with my sullen rookie? His grin only became more insufferable when he skipped forward to dodge a strike aimed at his rear. I appreciated Laurentius trying, but even if that last-ditch effort had connected, the fight was already over.

The Empress had stopped it. We were done. Victor won.

"Not a scratch," Victor said, when I opened the gate for him and the quad trailing on his heels.

"If you say so. I paid little attention to the demo fight."

The twinkle in his blue eyes dismissed my lies for what they were. The bastard knew that a team of horses couldn't have torn me away from watching his every move.

He stopped just inside the gates, grinning at me, steaming in the cool air like a stallion after a gallop. His skin glistened with mixed sweat and oil. The tunnels under the Colosseum would be even chillier than it was outside, so I unfastened the fibula at my right shoulder, releasing my long woolen cloak. Sand stained his skin after his last fall and all the rolling he did in it... and I wrapped my favorite cloak over him with only the tiniest of frowns.

"Yes, yes. Good job." I patted him on the back. It might have been more of a spanking, oddly satisfying to me.

He tugged the cloak shut over his chest, smoothing the fabric gently, appreciating the quality of the insanely expensive cloth.

"Now run along, jester," I grumbled. "You'll get your reward after the rest of our quad finishes the actual match."

"Can't wait." With that he was through the gate and the dark tunnel swallowed him almost immediately. In his place, Rufius Fulgentius' face loomed, then our pox-ridden opponents, preparing to put on a show of their own.

I glowered at them, then at the four buddies—Laurentius, Didius, Junius and Quintus—trying to sneak by me. "I was always of the opinion that it's too late to teach on the eve of the fight. But I will make an exception. We have much to discuss. Much, much to discuss.... Get in!"

They all lowered their heads like guilty spaniels, even Junius, my best before Victor showed up. Quintus bit his lips, like he was ready to burst into tears again. I would have to do something about that.